for her,
and her father had been told to come and receive them. "No," she sighed,
"the'e wouldn't be time to let them know. But it wouldn't make
any difference. I could get home from New Yo'k alone," she added,
listlessly. Her spirits had fallen again. She saw that she could not
leave Venice till she had heard in some sort from the letter she had
written. "Perhaps it couldn't be done, after all. But I will see Mr.
Bennam about it, Mr. Osson; and I know he will want you to have that
much of the money. He will be coming he'e, soon."

He rose upon what he must have thought her hint, and said, "I should not
wish to have him swayed against his judgment."

The vice-consul came not long after the minister had left her, and she
began upon what she wished to do for him.

The vice-consul was against it. "I would rather lend him the money out
of my own pocket. How are you going to get along yourself, if you let
him have so much?"

She did not answer at once. Then she said, hopelessly, "I've a great
mind to go home with him. I don't believe there's any use waiting here
any longa." The vice-consul could not say anything to this. She added,
"Yes, I believe I will go home. We we'e talking about it, the other day,
and he is willing to let me go with him."

"I should think he would be," the vice-consul retorted in his
indignation for her. "Did you offer to pay for his passage?"

"Yes," she owned, "I did," and again the vice-consul could say nothing.
"If I went, it wouldn't make any difference whether it took it all or
not. I should have plenty to get home from New York with."

"Well," the vice-consul assented, dryly, "it's for you to say."

"I know you don't want me to do it!"

"Well, I shall miss you," he answered, evasively.

"And I shall miss you, too, Mr. Bennam. Don't you believe it? But if I
don't take this chance to get home, I don't know when I shall eva have
anotha. And there isn't any use waiting--no, there isn't!"

The vice-consul laughed at the sort of imperative despair in her tone.
"How are you going? Which way, I mean."

They counted up Clementina's debts and assets, and they found that if
she took the next steamer from Genoa, which was to sail in four days,
she would have enough to pay her own way and Mr. Orson's to New York,
and still have some thirty dollars over, for her expenses home to
Middlemount. They allowed for a second cabin-passage, which the
vice-consul said was perfectly good on the Genoa stea